It was bound to happen. Trading in Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls‘ new Blood Shard currency for items has felt like a waste of time to many. Speaking of which, treasure chests have felt like anything but, and Rifts can be cleared for hours without seeing a legendary. Given Blizzard’s latest trend of success with making Diablo 3 as fun to play and rewarding as possible, these issues have become a quick target for a post-RoS hotfix.
A new hotfix is now live on the servers which makes several changes behind the scenes that will make loot hunters very happy. An official post on the Blizzard forums details the hotfix with the following:
The Bad!
Unique monsters now drop less items.
*Uniques were dropping far more loot than their difficulty would warrant.
Chest spawns have been thinned out across all acts of the game.
*Ideally chests become less common and something that players can’t flip games to farm. It is our goal to make them feel exciting and rewarding when you find them.
The Good!
The bonus legendary drop rate for rifts is being increased from 25% to 100%!
*This means that while in a rift your chance to find a legendary item from monsters, chests, elites, and everything else is double what it is outside of rifts. No this does not mean opening bounty bags in rifts is the new hotness. ;P
Kadala’s legendary drop rate has been significantly increased.
*Blood Shards are meant to be a compelling element of rift rewards and something players are excited to get.
As intended, Rifts have been enforced as a more rewarding option than Bounties, but you’ll need to clear Bounties to earn Rift Fragments. The Blood Shards you earn while clearing Rifts will hopefully net you a bonus legendary or set item.
Blizzard have made it clear that Diablo 3 2.0’s varied legendary affix design lends itself to allowing players to earn a lot of cool loot that can be swapped in and out for unique builds. Legendaries may be plentiful, but no matter how much you play you’ll likely feel like you can never have enough of them.
This hotfix has been implemented server side so no update is required.
[Source: Blizzard Forum]
